Fed up of reformating

[Scrumpy Jack]

My computer is slowing down and I really cannot be bothered to reformat so I was thinking about uninstalling everything and use some software which will get rid all the old junk files/registry entries but I know there will still be tons of invalid files left over and I don't know what to delete, what do you suggest to do?

[Kiezo]

Lern 2 computer!

I'm lucky if I format once every two years with no real noticable slowdown etc. Prevention is better than cure, so as long as you know what you're doing it shouldn't happen.

Anyway, doing what you're saying will take way longer than formatting, so what's the problem? If it's losing files (music, pictures, whatever), format the ol' partition way.

[Teagan]

Anyway, doing what you're saying will take way longer than formatting, so what's the problem?

:yes:

[ShyBoy]

Buy (or acquire) diskeeper pro.

Enable iFaast.

This will locate your most commonly used applications to the external area of your disk and defragment your computer on the fly. This means that speed will increase because not only is it tidying things on your disk, but it's sorting them so the most useful ones are easier to find.

Or get a raid0 set up with 4 gigs of ram ;) a la moi.

[CoolMe]

You could if you want to, use Acronis Home Image.

When you format and put all the nice programs on (Office, Adobe, MSN)

Take an image - This will be your backup incase you want to format

It helps having a program like that :D

[Whowhere]

get Windows Vista and let it do all your defragging, reg cleaning and disk scanning on it's own. Failing that, easiest way is to backup your personal files and just reformat.

[Kiezo]

get Windows Vista and let it do all your defragging, reg cleaning and disk scanning on it's own.

Don't do this until at least SP1 comes out. Protip: Vista sucks.

[ShyBoy]

Don't do this until at least SP1 comes out. Protip: Vista sucks.

I use vista and personally on my system works much nicer than xp ;).

XP just seems so clunky and slow in comparison now. GUI driven by CPU = epic fail.

[Kiezo]

I use vista and personally on my system works much nicer than xp ;).

XP just seems so clunky and slow in comparison now. GUI driven by CPU = epic fail.

Still got all the compatibility issues that I don't like. Plus depending on his specs, it may require upgrading.

And tbh, any GUI made by Microsoft is epic fail. Blackbox and co. are the way to go on Windows.

[CoolMe]

Don't do this until at least SP1 comes out

SP1 Is coming out in roughly a month.

An even better reason to start the transition :)

[Whowhere]

Don't do this until at least SP1 comes out. Protip: Vista sucks.

Never had any problems with mine. A couple of games I've got crash some times, but apart from that nowt. Much better than XP was.

[CoolMe]

Thats the same as me, i have a computer designed for my games, but with vista i noticed a slight slow down - But thats because the games are very demanding, So when SP1 comes out - Im switching :)

[Teh_Gerbil]

Right.

Clean up unused probgram regularly. Don't download anything you don't trust. Do regular spyware/virus scan. WITH UP TO DATE SOFTWARE.

Learn to maintain your registry and remove pointless enteries for shit that isn't there. This is CRITICAL to good performance. There are program that do it for you, but I can't be arsed to get them. It's a simple enough job. Plus, breaking the registry results in fun games of "WTF is going on here?"

CCleaner is good program also for removing unused filez and crap that isn't needed. Get it.